


Full Locust Pose

by notluvulongtime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1495408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notluvulongtime/pseuds/notluvulongtime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melinda May and hot yoga. What could possibly go wrong (right)?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Locust Pose

**Author's Note:**

> Over on tumblr, acompesdivision gave me a headcanon from an ask meme: "Melinda May + Tai Chi (or yoga, or etc.)" I picked yoga but what started out as describing a headcanon became a fic. Usual disclaimer - I own none of the characters.

*

 

_New York, New York - 1983_

 

‘Hot yoga’ was relatively new to her at the time. Its founder, Bikram Choudhury, had a ten-year old studio in midtown Manhattan and since Melinda had mastered every type so far – hatha, ashtanga, kundalini, ieyengar, etc., she decided to put her name on the list, which was no less than a three-month wait.

 

Then The Handler called with an interesting development; her first Bikram yoga class was only days away.

 

A lot was riding on this, and with the limited funds she had, Melinda booked sessions three times a week for the next month. It was kind of the way she liked to do things – committing to difficult goals even though she had no idea of their outcome. It made her young twenty-something existence all the richer.

 

Yet, years later, she would agree that she had underestimated just how much of a turning point that month had become.

 

* * *

 

_Temp, 104 degrees F; humidity, 40 percent._

 

As Bikram chanted the ‘dialogue’ verbatim, Melinda struggled to turn off her mind and respond with the movements. By the second session, she had memorized all 26 postures, but still the conditions of the studio were difficult to get used to and instead of imagining being on top of an ice floe in Greenland, she saw the crowded streets of Calcutta in June, waves of shimmering heat rising from the pavement, the city praying for the monsoon season to come early.

 

What was worse, by the end of the week, she’d miscalculated how much water she had to drink. It wasn’t fair that her body – already in peak physical shape – could betray her in such a manner, so she became an ascetic with the liquid, eyeing it only as a reward for perfecting the last posture before a break in the flow of the asanas.

 

This was a mistake.

 

By the fifth turn, she had collapsed.

 

*   *   *

 

He was immediately Southeast of her in the studio. She was new, but not to yoga itself, he could see that from her quick study and the determination on her face. She was lithe, had a dancer’s body – in the manner that looks were deceiving; she appeared graceful and delicate but her postures radiated a power stronger than most of the muscle-bound men in the room.

 

But it was clear by the third session that week that this woman was competing too hard with herself, to the point where she could end up being a danger to herself. He wanted to intervene, remind her of what she must do – rest and drink water to counteract the hostility of the environment - but her single-minded devotion to the asanas told him that his advice would not be appreciated or wanted.

 

So he hung back, always with his peripheral vision cataloguing her progress. As it always did during hot yoga, his heart rate would rise, but there was something markedly different about it this time.

 

It was bounding because it sensed something bad was about to happen.

 

He managed to catch her before she hit the floor face first.

 

*   *   *

 

Melinda opened her eyes to find herself in Bikram’s air-conditioned office that also doubled as a ‘nurse’s station’ of sorts. She looked down to find an I.V. stuck in the crook of her left elbow and had the sudden urge to rip it out –

 

“Hey, relax,” a warm voice came from her left, a cool hand on top of hers, “It’s just normal saline. You need the fluids and giving it to you any other way was going to make you vomit, trust me –“

 

She did grab the cool compress on her forehead, to which he placed back in a bowl of water, letting the evaporation of the moisture on her skin provide her with more clarity, “And who are you?”

 

“Phil Coulson,” it was something about his eyes – all at once brave, full of mischief and yet sad – that made her trust him, “Took an EMT class a while ago. Been going to Bikram on and off for three years. This happens all the time. New students always feel they’ve got something to prove. Call it an initiation of stupid. Hopefully you’ve learned your lesson?”

 

Melinda’s face flushed then, not with heat stroke – which was apparently what she’d just recovered from – but from embarrassment.

 

“Sorry to take you out of class –“

 

“Oh, no, no apologies. Been trying to find a way to approach you. You’re different.

 

“I like that.”

 

*   *   *

 

The Handler told her she’d made contact with ‘the Asset.’ But he wouldn’t tell her who it was. She was to keep going to Bikram for the next few months, going about her routine.

 

_Just be yourself._

 

She wanted to laugh. How could you be yourself when it was hard to like yourself to begin with? But Melinda liked Phil. He was good in a way she couldn’t see herself achieving. He offered very little about himself, secretive but not in any ominous sense. Just very private.

 

One day, after complaining that she’d hadn’t had a date since high school, Phil suggested that they take a ‘white tantra’ class.

 

“Maybe the man of your dreams will be there.”

 

Melinda shook her head, thoroughly doubtful that anything would come of it, but was willing to try anything new.

 

She asked how to proceed from The Handler, but they never returned her message.

 

*   *   *

 

There was so much meditation involved in white tantra that it made the confusion in her head war with the quietude. She was frustrated – with just ten minutes of class left – feeling abject failure. Melinda squinted open one eye to look across at a perfectly calm Phil, eyes closed, lips parted slightly, jaw relaxed, skin smooth on his face – as though he were waiting to be kissed.

 

The moment of repose was broken as the instructor called for a separation of students on the floor. She assigned you a ‘1’ or a ‘2.’ Phil got a ‘2’ and was told to line up with the other 2s at the back of the room, out of sight of the 1s, one of which was Melinda, who remained cross-legged on the floor.

 

Each ‘1’ was given a white linen blindfold and instructed to cover their eyes with it. This wasn’t a trust exercise; one by one, the 2s would spend a full minute seated with each 1, both parties with one hand over the other’s heart. The goal was to concentrate on the other’s heartbeat – until there was only one to be felt. The instructor warned her students that this was a very difficult task; it was hard to leave behind the concerns and pressures of the outside world and just be mindful of the self, let alone the physiologies and psyches of another person as though they were the only one in the room. She told the class that if you could do this in one try, it best you remove your headband, for who you would see in front of you at that moment, was someone very special indeed.

 

*   *   *

 

This ‘2,’ their heart would race alongside hers and she pictured them – jogging together in Central Park to the same music. She would see the back of their head, never their face, not wanting to put a bias in her mind as to sex, age, race. Melinda just wanted to drown in the essence of what she could feel beneath her palm; what this person could feel under theirs.

 

Her breathing slowed, got deeper. Melinda imagined her head on their shoulder, swaying to a ballad, chest to chest.

 

And miraculously, before the bell chimed to communicate that it was time to rotate partners, the beats had synchronized into one powerful sound.

 

_Lub dub_

_Lub dub_

 

Melinda removed the blindfold and smiled, suddenly realized two life-changing things simultaneously – that this was the person of her dreams and the Asset all in one.

 

“Hi, Phil.”

 

“Hey.”


End file.
